Holding On
by LostinOblivion
Summary: They say everyone grieves differently, and no method of grieving is really wrong. Morgan was pretty sure this was not what those nameless people had in mind. Strong T. M/P Friendship. 6th in the Grief series.


Morgan's eyes were squeezed shut, his hands stroking his penis, movements growing more erratic and faster as he neared climax. And, in his head he was picturing her. It always started with some fond memory, and it always, _always_ ended with that night in the warehouse. No matter how he tried to direct it, and regardless of how much he didn't want to relive that night, it always ended the same way.

He'd started today with imagining her in that red dress, teasing him, saying she always won big at sin to win. He still couldn't figure out what the hell sin to win was, but hearing her talk about was a turn-on nonetheless. He'd taken the fantasy further than he ever had when she was alive, watching that dress fall to his bedroom floor, touching her, and kissing her. He'd been inside her, coming close to climax even in the fantasy, and then it abruptly changed.

She was on the floor of an old warehouse, a piece of wood sticking out of her abdomen, her eyes fluttering weakly as she said, "Let me go."

And, he let go.

It was always the same.

He'd achieve release, and then roll over and scream with his face planted in the pillow, fist slamming into the bed over and over again. He did not cry, not any more anyway. He just screamed in frustration and anger, and reaffirmed his intent to find and kill Ian Doyle. Then he'd get up and either beat the hell out of a heavy bag, or take down a wall. Anything to release the rage.

Today, after screaming he remained on the bed for several moments, breathing heavily, and wondering what the hell was wrong with him. If he were an unsub to be profiled, Morgan would say that he fetishized her death, that there was some unresolved issue or emotion driving this, this…whatever it was. He would say that it had more to do with himself than it did her, with his inability to let go of his anger, of all the questions that were never answered, and of her.

Frankly, he was more inclined to go with a shorter, more succinct explanation: he was seriously fucked-up.

When Prentiss was alive, he did not make a habit of fantasizing about her. When she first joined the team, sure, but after a while it became clear that she was staying and fantasizing about coworkers is a no-no. More importantly, they started becoming good friends, and with friendship comes respect and boundaries. And she became one of the closest friends he'd ever had, and one of the people he trusted most.

Then she died.

Not quite. First she became someone he didn't know. Then she died.

So how had he become so fixated on her now? It was purely accidental. A one-night stand with a woman whose name he couldn't even remember now, and a few words from her mouth that triggered a memory.

_How about a party in my hot tub?_

With a grin, he'd said sure and followed her to the hot tub, but his mind was already yanked back two and a half years to a conversation in the bullpen. Morgan had tried too hard to block out any and all thoughts of Emily, hoping it would block out the pain and the guilt, and this memory seemed to release a floodgate in his brain. A flood that passed through his head as he had sex with that woman. One of those memories was her death, which appeared in his brain just before the moment of climax.

Thereafter it had been her face he saw every time he had sex with a woman, until it became such a distraction he turned to self-service. Which is how he ended up here, jerking off to the memory of a woman he'd never so much as kissed, and wondering if the rage and the pain would _ever_ go away.

His body still shaking, Morgan pushed himself up from the bed, and headed into the shower. He let the hot water beat down on his back, and titled his head back, so it cascaded over his face and chest. Arms bracing him against a tiled wall, he took deep breaths and tried not to see her face, not to hear her laugh.

If she was going to haunt him so deeply, he'd have preferred a translucent apparition. Somehow that would have been less bizarre.

He dried himself off, and changed into jogging clothes. Shoving his cell phone and keys in his shorts pocket, Morgan started to warm up, stretching his body for what was bound to be a long run. Once satisfied with his warm-up, he locked up the house and took off down the block. He knew all the turns to make, he'd done this run enough in the last several months that he didn't have to think.

Morgan passed her apartment building first, running that last day through his mind for the umpteenth time. Why didn't he realize that she knew Tsia? Prentiss did not vomit at crime scenes, never at least that he'd seen, and they'd seen far more gruesome scenes together than two execution style killings. He should have seen it, he should have made her talk, made her let them help her. Let _him_ help her.

He was her partner, he should have had her back. But, he'd failed.

Pushing himself on, Morgan blasted down the street, his strong legs pushing him, thick biceps shifting back and forth encouraging the rhythm. Unlike the body-builder types, he kept both the upper and lower halves of his body fit. As well as a tight six-pack. His jaw tensed until he grit his teeth; he had teased her about that one day. Not long after they'd worked out together and he'd whipped his shirt off, revealing that six pack. Emily had grinned and whistled teasingly, before saying she could never get her stomach like that. He'd told her that, that was fine, the ladies are meant to be soft and curvy. She'd rolled her eyes at that.

When he finally got to the cemetery, he ran around it three times before he was finally able to go inside. With his heart pumping out of control, and his body slick with sweat, he slowed to a walk. Morgan came to the cemetery a lot, but hadn't made it inside since they put her in the ground. When he got to her row, he stopped at the end, the ball of anger and pain in his chest beginning to ache even more. With a swallow and a headshake, Morgan made it down to row, to the headstone he hadn't set eyes on since that awful goddamned day.

All six-foot-two of him sank to his knees as his fingers reached out to touch the rough face of the stone. He ran his thick fingers over the thin crevices of her birthday, and the day Doyle killed her. She would have been forty-one in a couple of months.

Prentiss had hated hitting forty. She'd tried to pretend so hard that it wasn't happening, but Garcia wouldn't let her. The tech brought in cupcakes, and gave Emily a big kiss on the cheek. Morgan had hugged her and whispered in her ear that she was still a hot piece of ass. She'd looked alarmed and pissed until she saw him chuckling, then she'd lightly shoved him. Reid had given her a lecture on how natural the aging process was, while Hotch and Rossi had been completely unsympathetic. They'd been there, and done that.

Morgan felt heat bubble up in his chest, and a painful tightening in his throat. The pressure in his body escaped in a breathy sob, and liquid heat in his eyes. Breathing slowly in and out to keep himself together, Morgan began to talk to her. He was not one usually to believe that she could actually hear him, but he was perceptive enough to know that it was more for him than her.

"I'm sorry I doubted you. I just…I thought you trusted me. I thought we trusted each other, and you never told me any of that. I…" He looked away, staring across the expanse of the cemetery before settling on the headstone again. "I know you were trying to protect that boy, and us, and I get that, but Emily…I would have helped you. I don't care what you did with Doyle, it doesn't matter. If you had just told me, if you had just let me in, I would have gone into _hell_ with you."

Morgan took a shaky breath. "I forgive you. For hiding it all from me, for running away, for walking into that trap, I forgive you for all that. But there's one-" He stopped overcome with emotion, and started again. "There's one thing I can't forgive you for. I don't know how if I ever will be able to forgive you."

Breathing slowly in and out to keep himself together, Morgan finally managed to ask the question that plagued him above all others. The one thought that threatened to rip his body in two pieces with fury.

"How could you ask me to let you go?"

* * *

><p><em>Finally, this series is finished!<em>

_I had more difficulty with Morgan's than anyone else's, and I was iffy about the first part of it, but I decided that I really liked it after I wrote it. It's hard to explain or even understand his slightly warped method of coping, but I think it fits with what a difficult time I feel like he'd be having with her death, with the turmoil he's no doubt experiencing. That being said, I'd love to know what people thought of this one._

_One other thing, going to reiterate that I'm basically changing my entire life, so posting might be irregular in the next several weeks. On that, I've been thinking of starting a blog recently on tips for fanfic writing (like I really need to give myself more to do right now). That would be most of it, but I'd probably also use it to the post information about my stories like interruptions in updates, (see the previously mentioned one). Mostly though it would be the tips. Anyone interested? _

_Thanks for reading!_


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